After His First Oscar Nomination in 21 Years, Robert De Niro Opens Up with Rare Interviews, Even Rarer Tears

“Robert De Niro doesn’t grant many interviews,” a recent CBS voiceover reminded Sunday Morning viewers. “Let’s face it, he doesn’t have to.” The 69-year-old, two-time Oscar winner may not often grant meetings with reporters, but over the past week, the usually press-shy De Niro has opened up in a string of television and public appearances, as Oscars voters decide his awards fate and that of best-picture nominee Silver Linings Playbook, the film for which he’s nominated for best supporting actor. The David O. Russell drama, in which De Niro plays an obsessive-compulsive Eagles fan struggling to find relationship footing with his bipolar son, played by Bradley Cooper, marks the first time in 31 years that a movie has earned Oscar nominations in each acting category.

The film also marks the first Oscar nomination for De Niro in 21 years, a topic that came up recently in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning’s Lee Cowan. “I was surprised that it was so long. I can account for all the things and all the time, and everything, but there it is,” De Niro told him. The sometimes prickly actor, who now has seven Oscar nominations in total, also amiably remembered his first role (the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz, when he was 10), commented on his shyness, and revealed his remaining goal as an actor: “At least two more films [with Martin Scorsese], make it an even 10,” he smiled. “That’s my obsessive-compulsiveness.” In the segment, Cowan also lingered on the extreme lengths that De Niro has gone for his most acclaimed roles—gaining about 60 pounds for Raging Bull, earning a New York City cab driver’s license forTaxi Driver, and learning how to speak with a Sicilian dialect for The Godfather: Part II.

Although he may not have gone to the same lengths for Silver Linings Playbook—say, adopting the Philadelphia Eagles as his team and abusing his blood pressure while watching each game on Sunday—De Niro suggested that the role may have been especially personal for him during a surprisingly emotional interview with Katie Couric on Monday. (One that was delicately promoted by a Katie publicist as “ROBERT DE NIRO, BRADLEY COOPER BROUGHT TO TEARS ON ‘KATIE’”.) In the Q&A, De Niro was joined by Bradley Cooper and David O. Russell, who was inspired to write the script for Silver Linings Playbook in part because of his son, who suffers from a mood disorder. While discussing how much the screenplay meant to him, De Niro suddenly choked up. “I understand what [Russell],” he starts before stopping to collect himself. “I don’t like to get emotional. But I know exactly what he’s [gone] through.” When he failed to elaborate, Couric attempted to do so for her audience, as the actor nodded along. “You understood some of the same experiences that he’s had with his son,” she offered.

On Monday, the same day that De Niro attended the annual Oscar-nominees luncheon at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, the typically attention-averse actor immortalized his hands and feet in cement outside the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood during a public ceremony. He even quipped to the audience, “You know, Joe Pesci always said I’d end up with my feet in cement . . . I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”

With less than three weeks until the Oscars, it will be interesting to see which other supporting-actor nominees—all of whom have won an Academy Award in the past—will pick up their press paces as the ceremony approaches. While Tommy Lee Jones and Alan Arkin may not be as likely to tear up on Katie Couric’s daytime couch, at least one of De Niro’s competitors has a high-profile appearance scheduled this month—Christoph Waltz, nominated for Django Unchained, will host Saturday Night Livethe weekend before ballots are due.